


We'll be All Right

by BeneficialAddiction



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Clint Barton, BAMF Natasha, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Feels, Clint Needs a Hug, Protective Natasha
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-13
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-05-01 09:00:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeneficialAddiction/pseuds/BeneficialAddiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov know that together, they'll be all right.</p>
</div><div class="center">
  <p>- In which a young Clint Barton risks his fledgling career at SHIELD in order to bring in the Black Widow. -</p>
</div>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Ever since Clint Barton had joined up with SHIELD, even from the very first, he’d know that there would come a day when they would give him an order he couldn’t follow. He wasn’t planning on it, wasn’t preparing for it, it was just one of those unavoidable things. He would never go so far as to deliberately miss a shot - that was never even a question. He had too much pride and too much of a reputation for that, but he was sure that one day they would point him at a target that he just couldn’t hit.

He hadn’t expected the order to come from Coulson, hoped it wouldn’t in fact, but in the deepest, darkest part of his chest he suspected that he’d always known it would be Natasha.

He’d known that the Black Widow was on SHIELD’s radar for years, labeled extremely dangerous and as close as one could come to being marked _kill on sight_. He never warned her – not that she needed a warning – but he hadn’t sold her out either. Clint knew more than one of the Widow’s secrets, but there was a love and loyalty between him and Nat that would not be easily undone.

As Clint climbed carefully down from his perch, huffing into his hands in an effort to de-thaw his bare fingers, he listened with a growing sense of shame and discomfort, even a little fear as Coulson and the rest of his team lit up his comms with curses and questions, barking orders for him to return to his post. Unfortunately, the thing about Clint was that once he’d made up his mind about something, there was no going back. He’d thought himself dizzy letting his mind run in circles on the flight from New York to London, but by the time they’d landed he knew there was no way he could pull the trigger on his oldest and most trusted friend. His _only_ friend, if he were being honest with himself. Sure, he’d gotten chummy with some of the Agents at SHIELD, but there was nobody for him like Nat was.

Still, Clint was smart enough to know that this probably wasn’t the best way to go about things, just standing up in the middle of the op and heading straight for his directive, but SHIELD wanted the Black Widow off the board, and he couldn’t let that happen.

So what else could he do but carefully stash his bow, send up a brief prayer that Coulson had enough faith in him not to put a bullet in his skull, and make his way down to the little coffee shop they’d had under surveillance for the last three days? There hadn’t been even the smallest sign of Natasha Romanov in that time, but Clint hadn’t expected there to be. She was too smart for that, for the standard SHIELD pop-n-mop. She would’ve seen it coming from a mile away and hidden herself accordingly.

Clint though, Clint saw better than most, and he knew how to draw her out.

Stepping into the café, he allowed himself the smallest flush of relief at being out of the damp, chilly London winter, his body stiff and cold from waiting at the ready. The feeling didn’t last, couldn’t last, but he strode up to the counter anyway, ordered a strong black coffee and the largest cinnamon chai latte they had, then quietly took a seat at a table for two next to the windows. It put him in full sight of the base of operations the team had set up on arrival, and Clint could almost feel his S.O.’s eyes on him as he took a long, burning swallow of his coffee. The other agents were snarling threats in his ear, demanding an explanation and telling him he’d better damn well have a plan, but it was the silence, the heavy feeling of unspoken disappointment coming from his handler that Clint almost couldn’t bear.

Letting out a slow, deep breath to quell the minute shaking in his fingers, he reached up and scratched at his ear, surreptitiously flicking the dial on his comms so that they were transmitting but not receiving. He could handle the aftermath of this, had resigned himself to that when he’d made his decision, but he wasn’t sure he could handle the steady stream of curses, gone from panicked to pissed, when he could hear the silence behind them as Coulson puzzled out what Clint was about to do. Taking another hard gulp of coffee, he allowed himself one sigh, just one, and tried to roll some of the tension out of his shoulders. With the risk he was taking here, he’d be lucky if there wasn’t a target painted on his back as soon as he stepped outside again.

He was saved the agony of further contemplating this fate when a slim blonde wearing severe burgundy lipstick and a massive pair of dark sunglasses slid into the seat across from him, picked up her drink, and inhaled long and deep with a murmured hum of pleasure.

“This is the third time you’ve been sent to kill me,” she said, amusement coloring her voice as she took a thoughtful sip of her latte. “Is this time like the last?”

“Was getting paid more last time,” Clint shrugged, catching the tiny uptick at the corner of Tasha’s mouth that anyone else would have missed. “But SHIELD has better medical, so I guess it evens out.”

Nat hummed, and for a minute they sat in silence while she sipped her drink. Clint took the opportunity to look her over, his muscles relaxing naturally despite the situation. She looked a bit different than when he’d seen her last, slimmer, sharper, but Nat was still Nat. He was amused by the pale honey color of her hair - he’d seen it cut and colored a hundred different ways, but she always went back to red in the end.

Still Nat.

He’d first met her when he was seventeen, just starting out as a two-bit, no-good merc, and had ended up saving her life by happy coincidence. The man holding a gun to her head at the time just so happened to be Clint’s mark, but whatever the reason, she’d taken an interest in him. They’d crossed ways several times after that before she introduced herself in typical Nat fashion, Clint waking up with a blade touched to the edge of his neck. That night changed things, not immediately of course, but slowly they began to see more and more of each other, running jobs together and sharing safehouses afterward. They’d gone so far as to sleep together eventually, just once, before silently deciding that they preferred another kind of intimacy. Months passed, years, and slowly she’d thawed towards him, until one day Clint realized that he was the only person Nat trusted. They were family, best friends, would risk everything for each other, and that was all that mattered.

He didn’t know when it happened, it just was. They belonged to each other now in a way that people rarely did, and Clint felt something in his chest get tight when he realized just how long it had been. 

“I’d heard you joined up,” she said quietly, and something almost sad crossed her face, but it was gone again before he could be sure. Putting her mug down carefully, she folded her hands atop the table and looked him directly on for the first time since she’d sat down. “I was… happy for you Clint.”

Somehow, the fact that she was being honest cut.

“Thanks,” he replied, shrugging away the emotions flooding his chest like she’d taught him. “Like I said, great medical. Plus I get my own bunk and as much cafeteria chow as I can stomach, so…”

“So why are you leaving?”

He told himself he was prepared for that question. At least he thought he’d been. He’d known she would ask it - she was too shrewd not to see the problem with their little coffee date, too smart not to know the risks - but it still hit him like a wrecking ball. He _liked_ working for SHIELD, liked that they had given him a chance to do something good with his life. He liked his handler. Coulson had made him better, _believed_ he could be better, had given him back himself.

Clint didn’t want to lose that.

“Who says I am?” he countered, knowing that Coulson could hear, shifting in his seat and letting Tasha see the sudden rush of discomfort.

Frowning, she cocked an eyebrow.

“Clint,” she said quietly, and he wondered if she knew he had a comm in his ear and had lowered her voice to hide the fact that she knew his name, but that was stupid because of course she knew. “You’re talking to me,” she continued gently, “In full view of your boss. How long before he calls you rogue and the hit on me turns into a hit on us?”

Clint’s shoulders fell and he dropped his eyes, because trust Tasha to point out the glaring obvious, the sore point.

It was a favorite trick of hers - going for the throat.

“They won’t let you get away with this,” she murmured, and it was half sadness and half warning in her voice now. “So. Are you planning to do your job, or are we walking out of here together and not looking back?”

“I’m actually hoping for the latter.”

And hell, if the sudden bright gleam in her eyes and the happy, genuinely happy smile on her face didn’t flood his belly with warmth then call him a dirty liar. She’d cared about him once - it was good to know that she still did, even if it was only that little bit. Enough that it pleased her to think he was coming back to her, even if that weren’t the case.

It had been so long…

“Not like that,” he sighed, and she immediately went still and withdrawn and deadly, and that was the Natasha he knew. Reaching across the table, he risked curling his fingers over hers where they cupped the handle of her mug, and while they certainly stiffened beneath his touch, she didn’t pull away. “Come with me.”

“What?”

It was harsh, demanding, a sharp _Barton are you insane_ , and that was Tasha too. She didn’t trust, not like that, and she knew that he knew enough that normally he wouldn’t offer, wouldn’t dare to hazard such a statement.

“They’re different,” he insisted, attempting for the very first time to put to words what he felt about SHIELD, about what they’d done for him. “They… they make a difference. They made me more than what I was. They…”

He sighed, certain, from her face and from the chill in his chest that he was failing miserably in his attempt.

“He said I could be better,” he tried again, daring to brush his thumb over her knuckles before withdrawing, and completely missing the way her eyes sharpened at the slipped pronoun. “Think about it? No more running, no more skirting the system. Always somebody around to watch your back, waiting to stitch you up and put you back together again when you come home.”

It had been them once.

He for her and she for him.

“Home,” she spat, and Clint might’ve flinched at the disdain in her tone if he couldn’t hear the tiny flicker of hurt beneath it. “You think you’re _home_?”

“Was never home without you,” he murmured, quietly, too low to be picked up by the comms and achingly honest. “But it comes pretty damn close.”

Another moment of silence passed before she spoke.

“And if I don’t?” she asked, and Clint jerked his head up as something like concern warred with a sneer at the edges of her mouth. “What then? What happens to…”

“I’ll be all right,” he said as things clicked.

She was afraid for him. Once she’d finally decided she cared about him, she’d devoted herself to that. Of course she would take into account what would happen to him if he walked out of here alone. That idea scared him too, but somewhere in his head he must’ve believed what he said, at least believed it enough, because she hadn’t kicked him under the table for lying.

Clint swallowed hard.

“They’re not like that,” he said, keeping his voice firm and clear and hoping that Coulson was listening. “But if you don’t, just… know that the next time they come for you, it won’t be me behind the crosshairs. I promise. We’ll… we’ll be alright.”

Nat nodded, and Clint thought something might’ve glinted in her eyes, but it must have only been the glare of the shop lights overhead. He wasn’t called Hawkeye for nothing, but there was no way he wasn’t seeing things now. The Widow didn’t cry, not when Clint had set her broken arm, twice, without anesthetic, not when she’d held him down as he screamed in pain from chemical burns.

Not for anything.

God she was beautiful, even like this with the blonde hair and the ridiculous socialite disguise, with a frown twisting at the edges of her mouth, and it had been so long and what he wouldn’t give to hug her if she would only allow it, if Coulson wasn’t across the street staring him down so hard Clint could _feel_ it…

Standing up instead, he pulled a few bills from the inner pocket of his jacket, left them on the table as Nat swallowed the last of her latte, rose and smoothed down her skirt.

“I need some time to think about this Clint,” she mouthed with her back to the windows. She’d learned sign language for him a long time ago just as he had learned Russian, and they both knew how to read lips.

Flicking a glance over her shoulder toward the glass, toward command central, she turned back again without the cool mask that made her deadly, let him see her fear.

“Be safe,” she whispered, giving his hand a quick squeeze, and then she was gone, slipping through the crowded café and heading, not towards the door or the street but toward the back, where Clint knew there was an alleyway that cut across to the river, one that wasn’t currently being monitored by SHIELD. He’d known, of course he’d known about it, but he hadn’t said anything, had left it open for Tasha to slip neatly away, and that was something he’d have to answer for too.

But even as he sank slowly to his knees, as his fellow agents burst into the shop with looks of anger and sheer disgust to slap a pair of cold steel cuffs around his wrists, his fingers counted the legs on the little origami spider Nat had slipped into his palm. He’d seen her spread the paper napkin over her lap when she’d first sat down but had no idea when she’d found the time to fold it, to tear off, what was it? One, two, three of the legs. Three. Three days then, three days and he’d have his answer.

He just had to hope that SHIELD didn’t send him to the firing squad first.


	2. Chapter 2

Yeah, they were definitely trying to kill him.

Three days.

Three days of hell, and still nothing.

Granted, it was only just after noon on the third day, but still.

Clint was ready to go out of his mind. 

He hadn’t been spoken to since he’d been arrested inside the London coffee shop. It wasn’t a tactic he’d been expecting, and it was unnerving as hell because he reacted to it by shutting up himself, something he almost never did. He was the loudmouth, the happy-go-lucky voice on the comms that chattered away, joking and flirting and in general doing his best to drive his teammates up the wall. It surprised him then, shocked him down to his boots when something in him clammed up, when he went silent and morose under their sneering glares.

He kept waiting for the questions. The demands. The vicious accusations and the insults, the _we always knew_ that Clint’s own sense of self-worth didn’t need any help imagining thank you very much. They were saying those things, he was sure of it - after all, why wouldn’t they - but they were careful to keep it behind closed doors, out of his range of hearing. All they’d given him was stony silence as they’d slapped the cuffs on him, jerked him to his feet from the café floor and dragged him off to the jet. Agent Waters, whom Clint had not-so-secretly nicknamed Agent Asshat, seemed to take particular pleasure in stripping him out of his tactical gear, none to gentle as he tore off Clint’s Kevlar vest, took his knives, and dug the comm from his ear before tossing him into the containment pod bolted to the deck of the aircraft.

They hadn’t found his bow, and that was something. At least, he assumed they hadn’t found it. He didn’t see it anywhere, didn’t see anyone carry it on board as they all filed in, but then again maybe they hadn’t even looked for it. Somehow that possibility cut even more than the thought that they might retrieve it, either to log it into evidence or to destroy it in front of him. It was the very first bow he’d bought himself, his first real bow, sleek and powerful and perfect, tuned to his form. SHIELD had offered him a better one, but it was rather like a battered pair of worn-in sneakers for Clint, one you couldn’t get rid of, because even when you got a new shiny pair, the old ones just fit. That bow was everything, and he hoped, really hoped, that one day he might hold it again.

He trusted Tasha to find it.

Even if SHIELD hadn’t, she would.

She knew him well enough, even after all these years, to know what perch he would’ve picked, and from there it would be easy enough for her to look around through his eyes and know where the bow was. She’d find it for him, keep it safe, even if it took weeks or months or years for her to get back to that rooftop.

But those things - the cuffs and the containment pod, the loss of his bow, the silent treatment from his colleagues who were so quick to turn on him after he’d saved their lives countless times - those things didn’t hurt nearly as much as the look on Coulson’s face when he came to stand in front of the pod.

And hurt was the only word that he could possibly use.

Fuckin’ _hurt_.

His handler, the man who’d given him so much, given him a job and a purpose and a reason, the man he’d come to trust and respect like no one else, the man who he was half-way in love with… he just stood there. Stopped in front of him with his hands in the pockets of his perfect suit, looked him in the eye and just… stared. Stared with disappointment so large and strong that it almost eclipsed the spark of fear underneath.

And the only thing Clint could do was stare back.

Because by this point he knew Coulson, better than any other agent at SHIELD, and if there was any kind of fear or anxiety in him then that was something Clint could use. That meant that he wasn’t sure, that for once the ever-assured Agent Coulson quite simply wasn’t.

And that meant that Clint had a chance.

So as much as it cut, as much as it felt like he was about to shake apart, he stared back, held his handler’s gaze and tried to communicate everything that his absent voice wouldn’t say.

_Trust me_.

Coulson hadn’t given him so much as a nod before turning away, disappearing into the cockpit of the plane and staying there until they’d touched down back in the states, until Waters had taken him by the elbows and dragged him into headquarters, past curious junior agents who scattered under the heat of his glare towards an interrogation room. He seemed to take particular pleasure in smashing Clint’s face into the door jamb before unlocking his cuffs and tossing him inside. The pain wasn’t so bad – he’d find Waters later in the gym – but the silence?

That was worse.

On the jet he’d had some sense of time, knew that at least one of Tash’s days were up once they’d landed. She wasn’t cruel - she’d count their coffee shop meeting as the first, which meant he only had two more at most to endure in the blandly empty room with the white walls and the blatantly obvious two-way mirror, but knowing that didn’t help. Didn’t help when the absent tick of a clock made him want to pace, when he caught himself trying to measure the passing hours by the beat of his heart. Still, there was no way he was going to let this, the most simple of tactics, break him. He was Agent Clint Barton after all, on the fast track to skipping Levels 3 and 4 to become a certified Specialist, scourge of naïve junior agents and asshole senior agents alike. His was one of the most well-known names in the organization - not always for the best of reasons - but that was inconsequential.

He could survive this, easy-peasy.

Being a smart ass about it, well.

Didn’t somebody famous once say that one should always enjoy their work?

So parade rest it was, a controlled yet easy stance facing the door with his back to the corner of the room, hands behind him as he clasped one of his wrist lightly with the other. It appeared a relaxed position and in a way it was - Clint could hold it for hours - but it was also one that leant itself easily to a fight. Anyone worth their place in SHIELD should be able to recognize that, the uneasy tension coiled in his shoulders that said he was a hairsbreadth of control away from snapping like a caged animal.

He certainly felt like one.

But if Clint Barton had learned anything in his long career as a sniper, it was patience.

If he’d learned anything from his career in the circus, it was how to put on a show.

So he waited, for hours, no food, no water, and thank god for that because he wasn’t about to crack and ask for a bathroom break. Exhaustion, like hunger, came and then went again in that way it did, replaced by a hyper-alert paranoia, heightened senses, his eyes fluttering closed as he strained his half-deaf ears to listen for movement or voices on the other side of the door, the reflective glass. He didn’t know what he was waiting for, Coulson, Fury, maybe even Hill - whose interrogation technique Clint was most afraid of - but they never came, not with anger or death sentences or papers to relocate him to Antarctica.

Honestly, Clint wasn’t sure there were any other outcomes waiting for him.

Color him surprised then when Fury stormed into the room, black coat swirling around him and thunderous anger written all over his face, demanding to know what the Black Widow was doing in his lobby, armed with a bow and surrendering herself to Agent Clinton Francis Barton.

Clint just blinked.

Fuckin’ Tasha - his middle name wasn’t something he shared with many people, and by now the whole damned building would know…

But that was the exhaustion and the stress starting to edge in on him - there were more important things at hand he needed to focus on.

Like the fact that Fury had just snarled a put-upon sigh, strode into the room and fisted his hand in the back of Clint’s t-shirt just above his shoulder blade. It took all of his training not to react, to just let the larger man frog-march him out of the room and down the hall, into the wide, crowded lobby where half of SHIELD had gathered. Christ, everyone was here; Hill, Sitwell, Agent Asshat and the rest of the London team. And Coulson, who was standing quietly along one side of the room, arms folded across his chest as he watched twelve other agents hold their pistols steady on Natasha’s chest.

Natasha, who looked as calm and as cool as she ever did, even with the guns being pointed at her and blood staining her side bright and ruby-red. Bad knife wound from the look of it, long and deep across her ribs, but she stood steady and confident, hair impeccable and a dark, matching scarlet, Clint’s bow held loosely in one hand and his quiver slung across her chest.

“You weren’t kidding about the warm welcome,” she called flatly as Fury propelled him toward her, still keeping a tight grip on the collar of his shirt, and Clint couldn’t help a grin. He’d written her letters for a long time, left them stashed around the world whenever they shipped him out to a place where he and Tasha had ever shared a job or a drop. He’d never been sure if she’d gotten any of them until now. That one, the one where he’d described his recruitment into SHIELD, that one he’d left in a safety deposit box in a bank in Italy.

“At least they didn’t shoot you in the leg,” he replied, stumbling a bit when Fury gave him a shake like a naughty puppy and threw him across the floor towards her.

Catching his balance, he took slow, steady steps forward, his hands out to his sides for more than just the agents watching them. Half of those pistols were aimed at him now, but Tasha’s eyes were darting quickly around the room, her fingers drumming against the grip of his bow, tells she allowed to slip through just for him to see. Letting him know where her head was at, letting him know to be careful, not just of his colleagues but of her too. Hurt, surrounded, in enemy territory, she was as tightly wound as the Black Widow ever was, and that meant that even Hawkeye needed to take care.

Clint didn’t hold it against her, but as soon as he got within arm’s length she blinked and suddenly the cold, icy glass was gone from her eyes and she was reaching out a hand, touching her fingertips gently to the bruise the spread across his cheekbone and along his temple where Waters had smashed his face against the doorjamb. He could feel the tightness and the heat of the blood beneath the skin and knew without the benefit of mirrors that it was turning a deep, purpling blue, but Tasha’s touch was feather-light and didn’t elicit more than a sigh of pointed relief from him.

Tasha only arched an eyebrow.

“You promised me you wouldn’t be hurt for this,” she accused quietly, but Clint didn’t doubt for a minute that every agent in the room had heard.

“Yeah, well,” he shrugged casually, “There’s always one asshole in the bunch, isn’t there?”

“And does this asshole have a name?”

Clint smirked wickedly because he could practically feel Waters go stiff and wide-eyed behind him.

“You don’t need it,” he said by way of answer, and she sniffed, but then he saw the Black Widow’s gaze flick over his shoulder, narrow and zero in, and it was the Widow, not Nat in that moment. No doubt Waters had gone white as a sheet and given himself away, but Clint could hardly be blamed for the other agent’s inability to control his physical reactions. And besides, it wasn’t like Tasha would actually need to do anything to the guy – her reputation and the man’s own frightened imagination would keep him jumping at shadows for at least a month at this point.

Abruptly easing her stance, she lifted the strap of his quiver over her head and handed it over before the agents behind him even had the safeties off their guns. The bow she handed him next was unstrung - he always stored it that way - but Clint still had to hold back a shake of his head. This was the Black Widow before them – knowing what they knew, she should’ve been shot as soon as she walked through the door. Not only had they allowed her to waltz right up to their primary base of operations, they’d let her do it well armed. Even if she didn’t have the muscle mass to draw Clint’s bow she was still deadly, and with the string missing entirely she had a perfectly serviceable garroting wire secreted away somewhere on her person. 

But it was a relief too, because it hinted at the fact that Clint’s bluff might be right on the money, that Fury would rather have the Widow on his payroll than six feet under.

“I know how you feel about this one,” Tasha said in Russian, and Clint nodded, running his fingers over the smooth limbs of the bow.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. He did care about it, more than he probably should, but it mattered, this one. The first real one he’d ever bought himself, the one thing he allowed himself to really have, to really keep. Natasha understood that, even if she thought that naming a weapon was silly, that weapons should be more disposable, more… versatile somehow. “Let’s find a room, yeah?”

Hooking the unstrung-bow over his shoulder, slotting it into the clip on his quiver, he offered her his hand, palm-up, as much of a choice as he could give her.

“Please Tash,” he murmured, this time in Russian himself, in deference to her pride. He wouldn’t embarrass her with emotion now, not in front of half of SHIELD. She had a reputation to uphold after all, but there was something to be said for honestly and… well, fuck it. He wasn’t above a little bit of manipulation, was he? “I missed you.”

No one but Clint would’ve seen the change in her eyes, the minute warmth that touched her gaze and was gone again almost as soon as it had come. Nodding once, firmly, a nod he recognized from every single job they’d ever pulled together, she placed her hand in his and followed.


	3. Chapter 3

He’d led her slowly through the crowd, eyes locked with hers as he backed carefully through the assembled agents and down another hallway, back to the little interrogation room he’d been held in for so long. He wished he could’ve taken her to one of the larger conference rooms, one that was larger, with a free-standing table and chairs, tiny windows high up near the ceiling and a door at either end. Still secure, but just enough to keep her in a slightly calmer state of mind, to give him a chance to talk to Natasha Romanov instead of the Widow. He’d settle for that much, even if he’d rather it be Tasha or even Nat in that room with him.

But he could only give her so much, expect so much.

Hell, he supposed he should count himself lucky that no one had shot them, let alone stopped them in the hallway. He wasn’t going to push that luck by attempting to give her more of an advantage than she already had.

Fury had been good enough, or perhaps wicked enough, to wave down the agents with guns drawn, each of whom had been more than reluctant to lower their weapons, but they’d been allowed to pass. The Director and Coulson, because fuck, _of course_ it had to be Coulson, followed at a careful distance but Clint did his best to ignore them.

Hard, when every hair on the back of his neck was standing on end, every instinct telling him to string his bow and find a place up high…

Easing Tasha down into a chair along the back wall, he bit the inside of his cheek when he saw how stiffly she moved, the pain completely hidden behind the smooth mask that was the Widow.

But Clint saw better than most.

Slipping out of his bow and quiver, he placed them on the table before turning his chair to face her, clutching her hands in his for as long as she would allow. Not long of course, and it was more for him than her, to reassure himself that she was really there. God, he had missed her, but he’d brought her into a charged situation, a powder keg ready to blow, and his adrenaline was rocketing around in his veins so fast that he was sure she could read it in his face and in his shoulders and the way he breathed. Fury and Coulson hadn’t followed and Clint knew that they were taking a moment to speak, to strategize behind the one-way glass, and he was certain that Natasha knew as well. No doubt she was timing them, counting in her head, because two seconds before the door opened and the Director came sweeping in she pulled her hands away folded them neatly in her lap, straightening in her seat to face her judge and jury, leaving Clint abruptly unmoored and almost entirely useless.

He could be nothing now but a character witness, and with his own position already in jeopardy, he wasn’t sure how much weight his word would carry.

A quick glance at his handler suggested he was in deep shit.

The quiet disappointment from the Quinjet was almost nothing compared to this new, complete refusal to make any eye contact, and Clint’s stomach dropped into his boots. Beside him Natasha stiffened almost imperceptibly - no doubt she’d seen his head duck, his shoulders droop.

“Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD,” the director began, his voice harsh and cutting the silence in two. “And you’re Natalia Romanova, also known as the Black Widow.”

It was phrased as a statement, not a question, but from the corner of his eye Clint saw Natasha’s mouth curve sweetly at the corners.

“I have been called such, yes,” she replied, playing up the Russian accent so heavily that she almost surprised a snort out of him.

Fury just narrowed his eyes, made a humphing sort of sound that Clint had never heard him make before.

“As we understand it, Ms. Romanova, you’ve expressed an interest in coming to work for SHIELD.”

Silence.

Nat always had known how to use it.

“You understand my skepticism, Ms. Romanova,” Fury continued, though he was smooth enough to pass it off as natural. Nat would be counting it as a win regardless. “You’ve been a pain in my ass for three years now - a man might wonder what made you change your mind.”

Now it was Clint’s turn to stiffen, to sit up in his seat and straighten his shoulders, and he swallowed as he felt Natasha’s eyes slide over to him, linger on his face deliberately, felt Fury’s follow. He knew how lucky he was right now - he hadn’t been interrogated, hadn’t been subjected to pain or sodium pentothal, hadn’t once been asked about his relationship with Tasha or his loyalty to SHIELD or his involvement in the Widow’s escape. Nothing about the op or the way he’d walked away from it or if he’d helped her escape. Any and all of that was grounds for a charge of treason, even a trip to the firing squad. 

He was alive, and Tasha was sitting next to him, and they hadn’t been charged, weren’t cuffed, didn’t have guns pointed at them. Hell, his bow was sitting right there on the table between them, razor-tipped arrows within easy reach, and yet there they were, the four of them, sitting around the table like there was nothing strange about this, like it would be the easiest thing in the world to come to a satisfactory conclusion. And he wanted that, God, he wanted that. It was fantasy at this point, a dream he hadn’t ever allowed himself to entertain before. He and Tasha, working together again like a well-oiled machine, missions as smooth as butter because they knew each other so well. A team, honed and sharp and fast and perfect, with Coulson in their ears to guide them in the right direction.

It made him shiver, right there in the middle of that interrogation room, a full-body shudder that he couldn’t fight.

All he could do was close his eyes against it and swallow, because this was quite possibly as close to that dream as he would ever get, and yet it was also quite possibly also as close to the destruction of everything he cared about now as he ever wanted to get. His handler had looked at him, just a second’s glance, but there was a cool blankness in his look that Clint hadn’t seen there in a long time, and that was…

That was hard.

That scared him.

“Agent Barton was sent to kill me,” he heard Tasha say, but it was almost as if her voice came from underwater, the words low and dull in his ears as though wrapped in cotton. “He made a different call. He feels this place, your _organization_ will be a good fit for me. I for one trust his judgment.”

And well.

That wasn’t quite right, but it was right enough.

“Just like that,” Fury sneered, shaking his head lightly.

“Of course not Director,” Natasha replied, allowing a bit of her disdain to show through, and to Clint’s surprise Fury barked a laugh.

“You do not trust me,” Nat continued. “This I understand. It will take time, certainly, for such a thing. On both sides. I have made my decision, am ready to make my commitment. Now I can only wait for you to make yours.”

Silence, as Fury and Coulson both watched her, stared at her. The scrutiny made Clint squirm - his fate was tied with hers now after all - but not Nat. She sat still, practically serene, and that was her gift, her masks.

“I’m sure you’ve got requests,” Fury said at last, “Enough to _keep_ being a pain in my ass.”

Now she smiled.

“Naturally,” she answered sweetly, silkily. “Because we understand each other, until trust has been found.”

Clint felt his chest tighten when the corner of Coulson’s mouth flicked downward in a frown, but Fury nodded. He had the sudden terrifying feeling that the gruff, straightforward Director liked her, her blunt, brazen fearlessness, and that could either be very good or very bad.

“I work with Clint,” she said, and her tone left little room for negotiation. “No one else.”

“My agents work in teams Ms. Romanova,” Fury said by way of reply. “We rarely send anyone out alone.”

“If you feel that he and I cannot successfully complete a mission unaided, then by all means, send others with us,” she replied dismissively. “But until we come to that place of trust, you will understand if I want to keep my back protected.”

“By all rights Agent Barton is in deep shit at the moment,” Fury growled, shooting Clint a look that promised long, painful death and confirming his previous suspicions. “Until now we’ve understood his loyalty to be to SHIELD, not the Black Widow.”

“Agent Barton’s loyalty has always been to what is right, even before he came to you. He has brought you an exceptionally valuable asset and provided you with a weapon that will prove irreplaceable in the future,” she shot back calmly, startling a nervous chuckle out of Clint.

“If you do say so yourself,” he said with a grin, bumping their shoulders together.

“I do say so,” she spat back at him with a glare, but Clint settled under the severity, the sternness. This was familiar, having each other’s backs. She was fighting for him, as much as he was fighting for her.

“Fine,” Fury said abruptly, and then he was grinning at Clint with way too many sharp, white teeth for comfort. “This smart ass wants to stick his neck out for you - we’ll give him what he wants. If we take you on, you’re his problem. You understanding me Barton? She puts one toe out of line and it’ll be your ass I introduce my boots to.”

“Yes sir,” Clint answered seriously, earnestly.

It wasn’t a yes.

It was a condition, and it wasn’t even that he was afraid of that condition, of the consequences. Tasha wouldn’t take that on, wouldn’t risk anything if it was his life on the line. They would risk themselves, exhibit A this very situation, but they had never risked each other. No, it was the sudden rise in pressure, the fear, the anticipation, the god damned build-up that almost set him to shaking. Nat was sitting quietly, assessing, Fury waited patiently, and Coulson, Coulson was sitting so still and contained that it hit Clint like a brick that he hadn’t heard a word out of his handler since he’d gone dark in London. 

“Anything else?” Fury asked, and he drawled the question slowly, in a tone that spoke of utter boredom. 

In any other circumstance it might’ve been a real treat to watch him and Natasha roll their eyes and snipe at each other, both refusing to acknowledge the fact that they were both conceding ground as they worked toward a common goal.

“I assume you’ll be watching me, having me… report in,” she drawled right back, foreign accent thick and icy.

Oh yeah.

That, that right there he should nip in the bud.

“I want one man,” she said. “One. I will not be shuffled back and forth like…”

“A red-headed step-child?” Clint supplied.

Tasha narrowed her eyes at him but Clint thought Coulson’s mouth might’ve ticked, up this time, and Clint practically lived for that. He pulled a lot of stunts, said a lot of things, bought a lot of donuts to see that smile.

“One man,” she repeated. “To foster this trust, you understand.”

“And why do I have the feeling you have someone in mind?” Fury asked, glaring at Clint.

“I intend to give SHIELD my best director,” she answered. “I expect the same in return. I will work with a single handler, your best, and one my partner trusts. You assign me to Agent Phil Coulson, Director,” she said with a wicked smile, “And I’m yours.”

Whhhhoooops…

To both of their credit, neither Coulson nor Fury glanced at the other, but that wasn’t quite enough to reassure Clint. He was man enough to admit that over the years he’d probably waxed poetic about his handler, but he’d never told Tasha Coulson’s name, ever. He trusted her, trusted their drops, but he’d never done it, couldn’t do it. There was too much that could go wrong, and he couldn’t betray his handler that way, not for Tasha, not for anyone.

But they must think…

God, he’d never sat through a silence so thick.

And Coulson…

Damn, Coulson was still doing his blank-faced routine and refusing to look at him, still in a way that Clint could read so easily as thinking, thinking, how to fix this mess…

But then Fury was saying something and standing up abruptly and Coulson was following, just standing up silently and pulling open the door.

“But in the meantime, Ms. Romanova,” Fury rumbled, addressing Nat but shooting a smart-assed grin Clint’s way, “Please. Make yourself comfortable.”

And then the door was falling closed, leaving them alone in the interrogation room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluid chapters in this one, so some will be shorter than others. Let me know what you think Marvel fans!


	4. Chapter 4

“Well, what do you think Cheese?”

Coulson frowned, let out a long, steady breath. Folding his arms, he watched Hawkeye and the Black Widow through the one-way glass – and it was Hawkeye just then, not Agent Barton and certainly not Clint.

“He left an op,” he said, because at least if he was simply spitting out known fact he wasn’t frantically scrabbling for a way to fix this, to make it ok. “Went black, against orders.”

“He did. But?”

“But?” Phil raised an eyebrow, glanced over at his boss and long-time friend. The man was staring intently through the glass at the man and woman who were speaking quietly inside the room, but the set of his shoulders was a familiar one. 

Want.

Determination.

Oh hell.

“Barton’s a good agent,” he said finally, and that was an understatement but he made sure that he said it in as flat and professional a voice as possible. “A damn good agent. He’s smarter than he lets on, has a good tactical mind. He’s made good calls before, and this was a big risk.”

“Think the payoff will be worth it?”

“He does,” Phil replied, nodding his chin toward the man behind the window. After a moment’s pause, he decided to hedge his bets. “You wanted the Widow.”

“I did,” Fury confirmed. “Didn’t think we had a chance at her though. Not like this one.”

“Sir?”

“Oh come on Coulson,” Fury scoffed, turning to give him an unimpressed look. “You can’t tell me you don’t see the perfection here.”

Phil frowned - at the moment he really, really couldn’t. 

Fury sighed. “She trusts him, yes?”

Phil nodded.

“You’re sure. Tell me why.”

“She drank the coffee,” Phil shrugged.

Another unimpressed look.

“When Barton when black in London,” he elaborated, “He walked down to the coffee place we were staking out. Bought her a coffee, carried it to the table. She started drinking it as soon as she sat down. There was no way she had eyes on it the whole time – she trusted him not to drug or poison her.”

“And she came in.”

“And she came in,” Phil agreed with resignation. “So. What Level do we start her at?”

Fury’s smile was huge and sharp and bright, dangerous.

“Put them both on probation,” he said. “Work them through the rookie evals – you’ll be able to assess Romanova and it should knock Barton down a peg. Having all his colleagues watch him get stuck with the newbies should be punishment enough to make him think twice before going black again.”

“Or make him twice the hell to work with,” Phil muttered, and beside him Fury chuckled darkly.

“Strike Team Delta,” he said quietly, almost to himself.

“Sir?”

“They want to work together,” he said, watching the window again. “Fine. We’ll let them. Romanova gets her trusted agent and Barton helps keep her in line. There’s obviously something between them – let them keep each other in check.”

“Strike Team Delta,” Phil echoed.

Hell.

Why did he get the sudden, sinking feeling…

“Congratulations Agent,” Fury said, turning to him and holding out his hand. “Or should I say Handler? You’ve just been promoted to Level 7.”

**AVAVA**

“You’ve been keeping tabs on me,” Clint said quietly on the other side of the glass.

It was a statement, not an accusation, but it was true and he didn’t need her to confirm it to know.

“Of course,” Nat replied calmly. “As soon as I’d heard that SHIELD brought you in.”

“Planning a rescue mission?”

“Several. But you seemed to be doing all right, and you’d made your choice.”

“I didn’t choose them over you, Tash.”

“I never said you did,” she replied, shifting in her seat uncomfortably, and Clint abruptly remembered that she was injured, bleeding.

“Shit, are you ok?”

Nat rolled her eyes, pushed her chair back from him and grimaced as she lifted her shirt. There was a long, clean slice wrapping around her side, from low on the front of her left hip up and around, across the lower part of her rib cage. A knife wound, possibly the tip of a sword.

“Tensile steel?” he asked as his fingers tested her ribs lightly, looking for broken bones beneath.

Natasha nodded and Clint smirked.

“Getting slow Nat?” he teased, and then quickly ducked out of the way as she aimed a slap at the back of his head, muttering Russian curses under her breath.

“You’re gonna need stitches,” he sobered, getting up to take his bow from the table and lean it against the wall. “Come on, up.”

Nat narrowed her eyes, for a moment went perfectly still, but then she was standing smoothly, fluidly, and pulling her shirt over her head, climbing onto the table and lying down flat on her back.

“They’re watching us,” she said in Russian, her eyes decidedly not on the one-way glass. “What will they make of this?”

Clint shrugged – she was mocking him, not actually looking for an answer. He didn’t really give a damn what Fury thought and Nat needed the medical attention. It was highly unlikely she'd be willing to go anywhere near the med wing any time soon, probably wouldn’t for a few years. She didn’t trust doctors, needles, drugs, and with good reason.

She trusted Clint.

So regardless of what Coulson thought of her stripping off her top for him, of the way she gripped the edges of the table when he skimmed his fingertips over her bare skin, checking the laceration one more time. He was no medic but he could handle a simple field dress, and he would do what he had to for her.

The knot it put in his stomach, a dull weight that only got heavier when he thought about his handler, well, that would just have to wait for now.

“Can we get a suture set in here?” he asked, raising his voice even as he kept his back to the window. “There’s one in my jump kit.”

In the middle of the room Tasha tensed.

It was a horrible three minutes – him leaning against the wall next to the door with her lying white-knuckled on the table, but there was nothing he could do about it. All in all three minutes was a relatively short time to wait. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, knowing that his kit had probably been left on the deck of the Quinjet or tossed into a corner of the flight room floor, wasn’t sure if that meant they planned to keep him or not. Things had sounded… ok when Fury walked out, but the shifty fucker hadn’t given them a definitive yes or a no and that meant that technically things were still undecided.

Still changeable.

The sound of the door opening spooked Clint out of his musings, made him jump just a fraction, but Tasha saw and lifted one perfectly arched brow. He would have stuck his tongue out at her if his mood wasn’t hanging so dark and somber around his neck, if it wasn’t Coulson standing there in the half open doorway with a blank expression and Clint’s scruffy black duffel in his hand. Stepping carefully forward, he reached out slowly and took the proffered bag, caught the strap without making physical contact with the other man.

“Thank you sir,” he said quietly, voice as soft and low as Clint ‘Hawkeye’ Barton was capable of. He’d ducked his head a little, an unconscious gesture of shame and submission, and now he looked up through his lashes at Coulson and had to swallow the lump in his throat when he couldn’t read the shadows shifting in the man’s eyes.

“Do you need anything else?” he asked a moment later, a long, painful, drawn-out moment. His gaze flicked back over Clint’s shoulder where Tasha lay prone on the table, but Clint carefully kept his body between them, broad shoulders eating up the space inside the door frame. It wasn’t mistrust in Coulson, nothing like that, but he knew Tasha and knew without looking that her eyes were closed, that she was putting every ounce of her energy into lying still and loose on the table, not giving anything away.

“No sir,” he responded, and then stalled, his mouth open and no words left on his tongue.

Coulson watched him for a moment, studied his face, then nodded once, turned away.

“Patch her up then,” he said, and then the door swung shut on him, leaving him with a feeling of things undone low in the pit of his belly.

“You like him,” Tasha murmured, too quiet for anyone listening on the other side of the false mirror to catch.

Clint shrugged.

“I respect him,” he said, not caring whether or not his own voice carried. “He made me more than what I was.”

Tasha’s mouth twisted and her eyes flicked to the window before she settled back again, relaxing as Clint dragged a chair up to the side of the table.

“That’s your Coulson then,” she said, and ok, now Clint was wishing she’d kept to whispers.

“Not _mine_ ,” he protested before flicking a lock of her hair that dangled over the side of the table. “And I never told you his name.”

“You didn’t have to,” she retorted, watching as he yanked the zipper of his bag, came up with a suture set and a clear, glass bottle sealed around the top with black wax. “You trust him.”

“Yes.”

And he did. It was a simple as that. He might not trust Fury, with good reason, or SHIELD quite as much as he probably should, but he had a kind of dogged, starry-eyed faith in Phil Coulson that might just get him killed one day. The man deserved that from him, more, probably, but Clint had always given up too much of himself to his idols – first Barney, then Trick, then Tasha for a while. Phil Coulson was just the most recent in a long line of people who commanded Clint’s utter devotion.

His heart, well, that wasn’t much different.

“You’ve kept this,” Tasha said, turning the glass bottle in her hands as Clint rubbed antiseptic gel over his, wrinkling his nose against the astringent burn. “You carry it with you.”

“Never know when you’ll need a bottle of good vodka,” he shrugged, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. He could feel her watching him as he opened up the suture kit, picked up the tiny needle and sterilized it with a cheap plastic lighter from the bag.

“You haven’t opened it.”

“Maybe I was saving it for a special occasion.”

Holding the needle to the light, he slipped the surgical thread through the eye, turned back to find her staring at him with that inscrutable mask she wore so often, the cold, blank assassin no one could read.

“This is a special occasion?” she asked skeptically.

“Got you back,” he said quietly, touching a hand lightly to her ribs under the guise of turning her, exposing the wicked laceration. “Good enough for me.”

Another awful moment of still silence, and hadn’t there been enough of _those_ recently, and then Tasha was nodding firmly, the gesture eerily similar to Coulson’s only just before. While she set her nails to the task of peeling the wax seal from the bottle she’d gifted to him so many years ago, Clint tore open a packet of disinfecting swabs with his teeth, wiped down her side as best he could to make himself a clear field with which to work. He could see Nat’s jaw tighten when he ran the gauze over the open wound, cleaning away the blood and eyeing the depth of it, but then she had the cork out of the top and was running her fingers around the rim, staring at him with wide, dark eyes.

“Good enough for me,” she repeated, a mock toast that was serious for all it was pointless, and then she was taking a long sip off the bottle, letting the alcohol roll over her tongue before she swallowed. He took it when it was offered, tipped it in silent echo of the sentiment and took his own shot, bright and clean and burning.

“Oh _god_ ,” he choked, voice harsh and raw as he handed the bottle back. “You Russians and your god-awful vodka.”

“This is the best vodka in the world,” Nat sniffed, not nearly offended as she sounded. It was an old argument between them after all. “You should’ve chilled it though.”

Clint just snorted, waited for her to take another drag and lie back before he put his hands on her side and began to sew her back together again.

For a time it was silent while he found his groove again, sank into the quiet place in his head where things weren’t so loud and didn’t hurt so much. It wasn’t a place he went to often, only ever with Tasha before, but thinking back he though he might’ve gone under for Coulson once or twice. That concerned him, but it was a vague, hazy feeling, best left for another time, and so he focused instead on the task at hand, holding the edges of Nat’s wound together as he slowly and methodically stitched it up.

“You know, this reminds me of Bataan,” he said after a while, pausing a moment to stretch his fingers.

Tasha snorted, an oddly elegant little sound before she lifted the bottle and took another healthy swig. 

“You and I remember the Philippines very differently.”

“Oh come on,” he grinned, nudging her shoulder with his elbow as he set the needle aside, picked up another antiseptic pad to clean the fresh blood away from her side. “Under cover as newlyweds, infiltrating a shrine, taking in the nightlife. It was romantic.”

“It was completely FUBAR.”

This time he chuckled. “That too. Nice fat paycheck at the end though, and we took down their reigning mob leader and friendly neighborhood traffic consultant with one shot.”

“You mean _you_ did,” she huffed.

“Two birds, one stone. And no explosions - that was nice.”

“The check was nicer.”

“Sure.” Picking up the needle again, he curled his palm over the curve of her rib cage, deceptively warm and fragile beneath his hand. “Breathe,” he warned.

The next minute was silent as they fell once again into the push and pull of sutures and trying not to flinch, of biting the soft insides of their cheeks and tensing muscles they couldn’t relax. It was familiar and sweet in a messed up kind of way, but it was them and that said a lot. Nat kept her eyes closed as he poked the last of the sutures through her pale skin, didn’t react when he snipped off the end of the thread and leaned over her to press a light kiss to her cheek.

“All done,” he murmured, squeezing her forearm and collecting the bits of the med kit as she curled slowly upright.

She’d capped the little bottle of vodka, now half empty, and handed it over wordlessly, watched silently as he tucked it back into his bag. Her gaze was heavy and cool on his back, calculating, learning him over again because he wasn’t who he used to be and neither was she. It didn’t matter. She was still Tash and he was still Clint underneath it all, and he didn’t hesitate to turn his back to her as he placed the bag carefully on the floor. He trusted her, with his body and his bow, and that wasn’t something that would be easy to change after all the time he’d known her.

“Thank you маленькая птица,” she said quietly.

He’d hated that nickname once - _little bird_. He’d thought it teasing at first, and not the good kind, but time passed and he’d learned to hear the fondness behind the harsh Russian words.

She trusted him too.

Now, now though she was standing in the middle of SHIELD’S tiny interrogation room and looking around with dull eyes, looking for all the world like a child lost, but Clint knew she was mapping the security of the small space, calculating defensible positions and noting escape routes. There were dark circles starting to show beneath her eyes and her shirt was still stiff with blood, and he wondered how long it had been since she’d slept well, for more than an hour or two at a time.

Getting to his feet, he twisted and popped his spine, rounded the table and picked up his bow before holding his hand out to her palm-up, waiting. She glared for half a second before turning her back to him, magicking up his string from wherever the hell she’d been keeping it. Stringing the weapon quickly, he moved to the wall, sank down to the bottom so that he was facing the door before patting his leg. She didn’t even hesitate to move to his side, lying on the floor next to him with her head pillowed on his thigh, one hand out to rest her fingertips against the leather of his quiver where it lay across his lap.

“Go to sleep Tash,” he murmured, tucking a piece of hair back behind her ear. “We’ll be all right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aww, Clint and Tasha <3 Love it, hate it? Lemme know!! (:


	5. Chapter 5

Phil Coulson watched his new assets contemplatively, worried about each of them by turns.

Barton, that made sense.

He’d worked with the man for a few years now, had come to trust him and understand him in a way that no other supervising officer had before he’d taken on exclusive responsibility for the wayward agent. He knew him, sometimes it seemed better than Barton knew himself. He had memorized the man’s file front to back - an impressive feat given that it was at least an inch thicker than any other agent’s Phil had ever read - and while he might not know the stories behind them, he knew every mark and scar on the archer’s body. There were callouses on the first three fingers of his left hand from his bow string. A thin, white, knife line arching across the right side of his rib cage. A star-shaped mark, pale and pink on his outer thigh where Phil’s own bullet had driven into the flesh and taken him down.

A tattoo the size of a pencil eraser on the webbing between his right thumb and forefinger, a hieroglyphic spider in white ink that was nearly unnoticeable - a black widow, he now surmised.

It should’ve tipped him off, but nothing would’ve made him think…

Natalia Romanova.

The Black Widow.

Perhaps one of the best and most dangerous spies that SHIELD had ever had their eye on.

She was beautiful, he had to give her that. It was one of her defining features among those who had survived her, the mysterious Russian spy as gorgeous as she was deadly. And good too – he almost didn’t recognize her from the blonde who’d sipped coffee with his agent in London only two days ago. She was pale beneath her milky complexion, and the wound on her side was one that might’ve put any good agent out of commission, but she’d stood tall and proud with Clint’s bow in her hand as she strode into SHIELD headquarters like she’d owned it.

In that moment she might as well have.

They’d seen her coming of course, but not nearly as soon as they should’ve. Fury had practically dragged him from his office down to the front doors, had stationed them quietly to greet her with arms drawn and then promptly proceeded to be stunned speechless when she asked for their errant archer. Phil’s gut had gone cold when Clint’s name had come out of her mouth, and he was so struck by the feeling that he didn’t seem capable of doing much more than standing there with his arms crossed, glaring at the bleeding young woman while Fury stalked off after Barton and more and more of their agents began to filter in, ranging around the edges of the room to get a look at the infamous Black Widow.

She’d given an impressive first showing.

Shocking them all with the physical affection she’d showed Barton, subtly threatening Agent Waters who’d gone as white as a sheet and practically pissed himself before fleeing the scene, cavalierly facing down a dozen drawn handguns and allowing herself to be led into the belly of SHIELD as docilely as a lamb.

A façade of course - but one he hadn’t been able to see through sitting in that tiny interrogation room with Barton’s bow on the table between them.

It was evident even before he began talking terms that Fury wanted the Widow on their team. That had been reassuring only in that it made it far less likely Barton would find _himself_ getting disappeared. The rest was all unpleasant hypotheticals and stacks of paperwork, and Phil, who was known for having contingency plans for his contingency plans, hadn’t expected this. Hadn’t expected to end up here, with a shiny new Level 7 badge clipped to his lapel watching his Specialist keep guard over his newly stitched, newly assigned espionage asset.

He didn’t know how long he stood there after Fury stalked off, didn’t know how long he spent staring, tracing over the bodies of Hawkeye and the Black Widow, all tense lines and exhaustion. He wasn’t sure how anyone was going to break this silence, this standoff, wasn’t sure how to end what they’d begun, even before the Quinjet had touched down. Christ, Clint had stared at him with eyes like a storm, deep and rough and pleading and the archer’s silence had actually frightened him.

Nothing had ever made him shut up before.

And then it had been hours of debriefing, of reporting to Fury and attempting to support Clint’s case while still appearing objective and likely failing miserably…

And damn it, it was Barton, not Clint – that was where half the problem lay. His specialist was attractive, there was no denying it, but there was so much more to him than that and over the years Phil had been one of an almost nonexistent handful of people who had been allowed to see it, to get beyond the cocky, smart-mouthed exterior to the intelligent, sensitive, determined young man underneath.

That felt like a privilege, one that Phil had worked hard to earn, and one that he had no intention of losing by pushing for more or by compromising his agent because he couldn’t remain professional and detached in the field.

Besides, it wasn’t like Clint felt the same way. He flirted of course, but Clint flirted with almost everyone. When he felt safe, with people he could let his guard down around, he was fun and goofy and sweet, and it wasn’t anything strange for him to drop a terrible pun or pepper the baby agents with nerf darts or drag one of his fellow snipers in by the neck and drop a dramatic, smacking smooch on their cheek. And sure, with Phil it was a little different - quieter, calmer, more intimate because they knew each other better - but that didn’t mean anything.

It wasn’t that he didn’t have the confidence to think that Clint might be interested. He knew he was a little older and a lot more straight-laced than the archer, but damn if he didn’t know he was a badass upper-level agent who could fill out a suit just right. He certainly wasn’t past his prime just yet, even if his receding hairline thought differently. No, it was other things that worried him, mostly that he was just projecting on Clint, seeing what he wanted to see. The younger man had never made any overt propositions that Phil had recognized, and unless he did he was just going to have to find a way to keep his feelings to himself. Yes, he cared about Clint, and yes, the way they got along made him sure that things could go a lot further if either of them chose to take it there, but for now he was the man’s Handler, no more and no less.

It would have to be enough.

It was his role, his responsibility now to take care of Clint and Natalia Romanova too.

Given that she was pale and limp with blood loss and exhaustion, and that Clint hadn’t had food or water in almost two full days - a tactic Phil vehemently opposed for any human being, be they incarcerated or employed by SHIELD - perhaps it was time to start.

Besides, he’d been standing here too long already.

The walk down to the cafeteria did little to clear his head, even though he took the long way. He needed it, the time, and if he didn’t have two specialists waiting on him he might’ve gone home, checked out early. Christ knew he’d earned it after these last few days, and all he really wanted right now, in this very moment, was to climb into a pair of sweats and collapse face first onto his own bed. Instead he found himself standing in a tray line, stacking it high with cold sandwiches and plastic cups of strawberries and pineapple. Hopefully later he would be able to get them both a hot meal and figure out what to do with them, but for now this would have to do. Grabbing bottled water from the coolers, he gave in to a whim and took two cups of the chocolate pudding Clint favored too, telling himself that it was just a peace-offering, an apology for the way he’d ignored him on the Quinjet, but he had a difficult time convincing himself it would be enough.

He didn’t check the window before he pushed into the interrogation room, didn’t look up, focusing instead on getting the tray through the door without dropping anything. Still, he felt silent eyes on him, knew that it was likely neither Hawkeye nor the Widow had truly been asleep on the floor against the wall. By the time he’d turned and placed the tray on the table they were both on their feet, watching him warily until Clint caught sight of what he’d brought and broke into a huge grin, leaping forward eagerly.

“All right, lunch time!” he cheered, setting his bow aside and pulling out a chair, grabbing a sandwich and tearing off the cellophane. “I guess were not on interrogation rations anymore?”

Phil flinched minutely, his mouth tight, but from the way Clint stilled and Natalia Romanova’s gaze sharpened they’d both seen it.

“You know how I feel about that policy,” he said quietly, taking a chair across from Clint and pulling it back from the table, giving them some room and keeping the furniture between them.

“Yeah, no, I know,” Clint said awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “I mean… hey Nat, you hungry?”

Narrowing her eyes at him, the Black Widow pulled out a chair of her own and sat back demurely despite the wound hidden beneath her shirt, making no move to touch the containers that Clint was tearing open with gusto. Phil raised an eyebrow but she made no response, only stared back blankly, and so he reached for a bottle of water himself, broke the seal with a crack and took a sip before passing it to Clint. The blonde froze for the space of a second, almost unnoticeable, before he took the bottle and offered up a shy smile that made Phil’s stomach ache.

They’d done this in the beginning, when he’d first brought Clint in to SHIELD. He’d been scrawny and malnourished, but the med team had reported that he was refusing any and all food and drink offered him. Phil had apparently been the only one smart enough to figure it out, and after proving nothing was poisoned by sampling each item himself first, had watched with satisfaction as Clint set to work on a breakfast big enough for three people. It had taken a while before Clint had settled in enough to take a meal on his own, and Phil worried that they might be backsliding if they were returning to old habits now, but then this was primarily for Ms. Romanova’s benefit wasn’t it.

Taking a long swig out of the bottle, Clint passed it to the Widow, who arched an eyebrow but accepted all the same, draining half of it in one go. He wasn’t sure it was necessary but Phil repeated the process for Clint, needing reassurance of that much, needing proof they hadn’t ruined everything just yet. This time Clint’s smile was wider when he accepted the water, more obviously content, and that took some of the tension out of his shoulders.

“Hey, pudding!” he grinned, digging through stacks of containers to the bottom. “Aww, sir, you do care! Here Nat, try this – you love chocolate and if there’s one thing the caf here does right it’s pudding.”

“Food first,” the Widow chided, and Phil blinked at the scolding, intimate tone she’d suddenly taken. “Dessert afterward.”

“Jesus, yes _mom_ ,” Clint snarked, chomping down on a huge bit of a sandwich to prove his point. “Wanff um?”

Natalia raised an eyebrow at the offering before rolling her eyes and pushing Clint’s hand out of her face, reaching instead for a container of strawberries and tearing off the cellophane. She met Phil’s gaze directly and held it steady as she raised a piece of fruit to her lips, bite down delicately.

“Trust, Ms. Romanova?” he asked.

“His, not mine,” she replied after swallowing, gesturing elegantly toward Clint. “Clint believes you are a good man. I trust then that you won’t take advantage of that.”

Heart suddenly pounding against his ribs, Phil licked his lips and swallowed against the knot in his throat.

“I don’t intend to,” he intoned seriously, and for a moment she stared at him silently before coming to whatever conclusions she could draw from those four little words and nodding her head.

“Um, awkward?” Clint mumbled, breaking the stare-down. “You guys forgot I’m right here.”

Natalia rolled her eyes.

“Eat your pudding Clint.”

It was quiet between them for a while after that, Clint and Natalia working their way steadily through the small mountain of food in front of them, Phil working on his phone and declining the strawberries offered him by Clint, who was dipping them happily into his snack pack. It had him a little on edge to be honest, because as laid-back as Clint was it couldn’t be this easily could it? To have everything go back to the way it was like they hadn’t just dodged a huge bullet?

It was a concern he could let haunt him later – for now he had his marching orders from Fury and plenty of information to pass on to his new Agents.

“Ms. Romanova,” he began when they’d both finished, “Do you require further medical care?”

“No,” she replied without hesitation, “Clint’s crooked stitching aside, it was more than passable.”

“Very well, I trust you know your own limitations,” he replied, ignoring Clint’s snort of exasperation. “Even if Agent Barton does not. But tomorrow I hope you’ll consent to having our staff look you over. A standard physical is mandatory for all new agents.”

“Ugh, every year too,” Clint added, slouching down in his chair. “I think I’m due for mine – we can go down together. Dr. Danvers is… not terrible.”

“A sparkling recommendation,” Phil deadpanned, hiding his surprise behind a cool, dry tone. Barton wasn’t due for a physical for another five months – he’d never voluntarily gone to medical before. “I’ll be sure to let Dr. Danvers know you said so.”

“Aww, sir, no,” Clint groaned. “You do that and he’ll sick Nurse Ratched on me!”

“Perhaps you shouldn’t have used Nurse Stevens’ knitting needles as miniaturized arrows.”

“I got ‘em all back like you told me too!” he complained loudly. “But she still gave me another _completely unnecessary_ tetanus shot the last time I went down. You should’ve seen the bruise on my a…”

Phil was spared the completion of that sentence when the Widow made a quiet suggestion in Russian, the only word of which he recognized was ‘Christmas.’

“You think?” Clint asked, mouth skewed to the side. “That might work…”

“Agent Barton, if you please?” he asked, waiting until Clint snapped to attention, sitting up in his chair.

_Redirect, refocus_ …

“As of now I’ve officially been made a Level VII handler. Given the assumption that the two of you will pass our entry evaluations, you’ll both be fast-tracked to Specialist. Together the three of us will comprise Strike Team Delta, a mobile response unit. Ms. Romanova, I understand your specialty to be espionage?”

“That is correct,” she replied. “So I suppose you should call me Natasha. Natasha Romanov.”

“And I’m Barton, Clint Barton,” Clint grinned, bumping shoulders with Natali… _Natasha_. “Hey wait a minute! _Rookie evals_?”

“Director Fury thinks it’ll be good for both of you,” Phil replied, tamping down on the urge to laugh. It was a bit cruel, putting Clint through his paces again with the baby agents, but he deserved it just a little.

“So I’m being punished,” Clint pouted, sticking out his lower lip and folding his arms over his chest. “Even though I just got you a promotion? Come on sir, you totally owe me one for that.”

“Tell you what Barton, I’ll give you all the extra paperwork that comes with it, sound fair?” he asked, and Clint’s eyes went wide as he began to shake his head vehemently. Thank god, because Phil hated when he pouted like that, biceps bulging and puppy eyes huge and pleading. He wouldn’t put it past the little shit to know exactly what he was doing. “For now administration has found you two adjacent dorm rooms in D-wing. Barton, you’re expected to have fully moved by 1700 tonight – feel free to commandeer any of our Level I agents to help.”

Rising to his feet, Phil tucked his phone back into his inner pocket and smoothed out his tie before meeting each of his Specialists’ gazes.

“I’ll expect you both in my office tomorrow at 0600. Once you’ve both gone through medical we’ll give you a tour, Ms. Romanov, and get you tac’ed out. The director briefs Strike Team Delta at noon. Don’t be late."


	6. Chapter 6

Phil made it to headquarters by 0430 the next morning, and very decidedly steered himself toward his office instead of toward the barracks. He’d stayed late the night before, unobtrusively keeping tabs on his two new assets via the camera feeds that covered nearly every inch of SHIELD. Despite having permission Clint had moved his belongings from one tiny dorm to the other on his own, shadowed by the Black Widow but unassisted. It had only taken a few trips down the long, narrow hallways – the marksman lived a distressingly spartan life and had since he’d arrived – just his clothes, a few books, a laptop, and the little bits and pieces of his trade that he’d picked up along the way.

Phil always worried the Clint refused to hold on to things in case he ever decided to run, even after all these years and even with the trust they’d built between them.

If for whatever reason Clint did get spooked, there wouldn’t be much holding him back.

He’d only just settled in at his desk when his phone buzzed, a summons by text to Fury’s office. He was still feeling a little strung out from the mess of the last few days – the disaster that was their retrieval mission, Clint’s apparent betrayal and the subsequent surrender of Natasha Romanov. The last thing he needed was caffeine, but it was too early to deal with the Director sans coffee, so he stopped by one of the senior break rooms to fill a mug before proceeding on. Fury’s secretary was already at her post, looking far too chipper for the hour, and not for the first time Phil wondered if she wasn’t actually one of their prototype life model decoys, but she waved him through so fast he didn’t have all the much time to contemplate it, and anyway, it wasn’t that important.

“You rang,” he drawled, closing the door behind him and turning to face his friend, who was dressed as always in his floor-length leather coat in spite of the summer heat.

“How’d you sleep Cheese?” Fury asked, his eye locked on his computer screen.

“Fine Nick,” he sighed.

So this was the game they were going to play.

As much as he loved the man, sometimes it was like pulling teeth. If he wasn’t painfully blunt he was obstinate as all hell, and you could usually tell what mood he was in as soon as he opened his mouth.

“Didn’t wake up and decide to turn me down?” he asked, finally blinking and dragging his gaze away long enough to give Phil a once-over. “You look like shit.”

Phil just quirked an eyebrow.

“I hadn’t realized I had the option of turning you down Director,” he said after a moment of silence, exhausted but willing to play along because it was easier than trying to drag anything out of Nick before he was ready. “And besides, who am I to decline a promotion?”

Fury barked a laugh.

“You always would have gotten the promotion Phil,” he said. “Hell I’d have offered you Deputy Director years ago if I thought you’d take it.”

“I like being a field agent,” he shrugged. “You know that.”

“I know that you like working with Barton,” Fury countered, “Though god only knows why. The man’s an ass – but you always were the only one who could rein him in.”

Holding up a hand when Phil opened his mouth to defend himself, Fury shook his head.

“I don’t care,” he stated firmly, without precedent. “We don’t have any frat regs and you’ve never let it affect your work as his S.O. - I don’t expect you will as his Handler either. If only because you apparently don’t have the balls to tell him.”

“I don’t…” Phil protested, finally thrown off balance, which was of course Nick’s intention. “There’s nothing to tell!”

“Whatever you say Phil,” Fury huffed, chuckling under his breath and turning back to his computer. “What’s your plan of action?”

“To get them both through a physical without any bloodshed,” Phil replied, holding back a shudder as he snapped into planning mode. He was really reaching for the brass ring with that one - getting Barton alone through medical was a near-impossible task in and of itself. “I’ll show the Widow around a bit, all the important parts for now: the gym, the range, the cafeteria. We can walk through paperwork later, but I’ll take her down and get her tac’d out – standard sweats and uniforms, and we’ll put in an order for a custom suit.”

“I’m sure she has her own tools of the trade,” Fury rumbled with careful consideration. “What do you think, should we let her bring them in?”

“I’ll speak with her,” Phil replied after a moment. “We may be able to custom order anything she wants, and that will save us the hassle of verifying anything she tries to have imported. I’ll get them fed and do a brief overview of our standard contract for new agents - that leaves you to go over our expectations of them as Specialists and as a Strike team.”

“Expectations I’m sure you’re eager to hear yourself,” Fury muttered under his breath, still eyeing his computer screen.

Phil bit back an exasperated sigh.

“I do prefer knowing what I’m walking into.”

“It’s not a trap Coulson, Christ!” the director growled. “I’m not setting you up! We’re still friends, you and I.”

“We are,” Phil agreed, his tone slightly less sharp as he stood to leave, smoothing down his tie with one and hand. “Which is why I’ll wait until the briefing to hear my part in this, and why I’ll have them here a half hour early. I need to get back to my office to meet them, though I expect Barton will oversleep. He’s… had a rough few days.”

Fury barked a laugh.

“They’re already up,” he said, swiveling his computer screen to give Phil a look at last. He had several windows open - feeds from the security cameras surrounding SHIELD and the adjacent streets - all of them tracking two very familiar faces as they jogged at a steady pace in short, repetitive loops around the building.

“She woke him up at 0400,” Fury continued, watching Phil’s face clearly.

Phil felt something in his stomach sink.

“They’re sleeping together?” he asked around a sudden rock in his throat, though he felt he’d been successful in keeping his face blank. He didn’t understand why the idea was cutting at him so badly - perhaps because he worried that this was the true reason Clint had saved the Widow’s life, that he’d risked Phil’s trust for his… his _lover_.

Because that was the only explanation wasn’t it? The dorm rooms locked via biometrics - only the palm scans of the occupant and the occupant’s supervisors would open the door, and nothing short of a bucket of ice water being dumped on his head could coax Clint from his bunk on mornings he’d overslept.

“Phil… Phil!”

Blinking, he hid a jolt as the director barked his name, bringing him back to attention.

“Jesus, you’re hopeless,” Fury muttered, “They’re not sleeping together. Figuratively or literally. They took damned turns, a bloody field rotation in Barton’s bunk. One asleep, the other armed and awake.”

Shifting with a creak of leather, he sat back in his seat, eyed Phil carefully.

“That’s why I know,” he said. “Why I know you three will make the best team SHIELD’s ever put together. Because they watched each other’s backs, all night, and because if I’d let you, you’d have been right there beside them. I give it a year before the three of you are damn-near inseparable.”

“Just because Clint and I have managed to build a working relationship doesn’t mean the Widow will join in,” Phil scoffed.

“Working relationship my ass,” Fury chuckled. “Regardless. I’ve got faith in you Phil. One year. One year and you’ll have Romanova eating out of your hand, same as Barton.”

“It’s Romanov.” Phil corrected for lack of a better response. 

“Romanov. She’s good Coulson. She blew a damned kiss to the camera this morning before stripping off and changing into a pair of Barton’s sweats. She knew it was there.”

Now it was Phil’s turn to chuckle.

“Of course she did,” he replied. “Clint did too. He’ll take it down soon, the same way he did with the last one. They’re humoring us, just like they are now by sticking to the perimeter of headquarters. If they’d wanted to disappear they’d have done it by now, even with the three tails you’ve got on them.”

Fury grunted, turned his eyes back to the computer to watch the agent’s non-existent progress. 

“How long do you plan to keep them on the short leash?” Phil asked. “The first time Barton came through you had him on probation for almost two years.”

“He didn’t have anything to keep him here the first time,” Fury answered offhand.

“And this time.”

“Don’t play dense with me Coulson,” Fury sneered. “You said it yourself - if they wanted to disappear they would have, this morning or hell, back in London. But Barton came back. He came back because of you, and he’ll stay because of you. She’ll stay because of him.”

**XXX**

“Hurry up little hawk,” Nat called in Russian, her words muffled as she toweled her hair dry. Still half asleep even after their run and with the hot water beating down on the nape of his neck, Clint could barely hear, but he could feel the exasperation in her tone. “We’re going to be late.”

“For the third time Tash, we’re not gonna be late,” he grumbled, wrenching off the water and climbing out, only to receive a damp towel to the face as Nat slipped out the door.

Good thing too - all told the bathroom was about the size of a closet and definitely not built for two people. He’d been hoping the promotion to Specialist would come with better digs, but he supposed he hadn’t really gotten the promotion yet.

Drying off and dragging on a pair of purple briefs, he decided he should count himself lucky he was still alive, let alone employed. A good stretch and a wide yawn went a little further toward getting his head in order - as much as he hated to admit it, he was lucky. The last thing he’d expected from Fury was to be offered a position right alongside Natasha, to be made Specialist on an elite Strike Team with Coulson appointed the voice in his ear. At SHIELD, being a Specialist meant you were assigned a permanent handler, and while Coulson had pretty much been Clint’s sole supervising officer for a while now, he was still eligible to be thrown back in the pool and plucked out again by any agent who needed a sniper on their team. This promotion meant that not only would he be able to keep an eye on Nat, be sure that she had someone at her back, but it also meant exclusivity.

“Clint!”

“I’m coming!” he growled, raking his fingers through his hair and ducking back out into his new bunk, bed still unmade, boxes piled in the corners. He wasn’t alert enough to catch the pair of cargo pants she pitched at his head.

Why had he thought this was a good idea again?

“Damn it Tash, settle down,” he grumbled, flopping down on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. Pants, belt and boots followed before he looked up, found her staring at him with an arched eyebrow.

She looked ridiculous, hair and make-up light but perfect, deadly serenity on her face while she stood swamped in one of Clint’s hooded sweatshirts. She’d changed back into the yoga pants from yesterday after spending the night tucked into Clint’s bed in her underwear, and on the whole looked unfairly put together for how little sleep she must’ve gotten, how early she’d dragged him out of bed.

If it had been up to him he’d only just be rolling out from under the covers, but Tash was understandably restless, and it had only felt like minutes after their switch that she was shaking him awake again, practically vibrating with the contained need to run.

Because running was a thing.

A thing that some people did for fun, without hating every minute of it.

Yeah, he was not one of those people.

Ugh.

“Put a shirt on,” she said quietly, ruffling his hair. “Or I’ll drag you down to his office half-naked. I’m not going to press my luck by being late to the first deadline they give me here. Unless…”

Startled by the abrupt change in tone, the slyness she’d taken on, Clint jerked back and blinked, eyeing her warily.

“Unless that’s exactly what you want,” she smirked. “Your Agent Coulson seems like a man who appreciates… straightforward demonstrations.”

“Shut up,” Clint muttered, shoving to his feet and hunting up a t-shirt, pulling it over his head. “I’m not in love with him.”

“I never said you were,” Natasha hummed smugly. “He watches you, you know.”

“He’s my supervisor - of course he watches me.”

“I hope that’s not the way he watches all his agents - after you I think he’ll be disappointed in my biceps.”

“Hey, you’re perfect,” Clint deflected, stepping up to wrap his arms around her and press a kiss to her forehead. “He’ll see that. They'll all see it.”

“Not if we’re late.”

Groaning loudly, Clint leaned down and scooped her up over his shoulder, careful of her stitches and deaf to the threats she immediately began to hiss in his ear. 

“We’re not gonna be late Tash,” he promised over her irritated yelps, stepping out into the hallway and locking the door to his bunk behind them. There was a convenient vent nearby, just at the end of the hall actually, that would take them right to Coulson’s door. “An’ it wouldn’t matter if we were. You got it right when you said Coulson was a good man. We’ll be all right.”


	7. Chapter 7

Ten minutes after returning to his office, Phil felt a little more settled than he had in Fury's. Paperwork tended to do that for him, and reading through Clint and Natasha's files got him into the proper mindset to start getting the two agents sorted. It was laughable, to see them sitting there side by side on his desk - Barton's a good two inches thick and filled with little red flags marking his less-than-stellar record at SHIELD, Romanov's thin and limp and mostly useless. 

The flight of amusement passed quickly, leaving him feeling hollow and slightly irritable and prompting an impulsive jerk of his desk drawer. Sweeping Clint's file into the bottom and taking out a new folder, clean and blank and somehow much better than the last, he stamped the archer's name neatly across the front before opening his personnel files and printing off a clean copy of Clint's cover sheet, complete with grumpy, mug-shot style ID photo that looked so little like the cocky, playful man he'd come to know. 

Clipping it to the front of the new file, he made a note of both the agents' probationary statuses and began drafting a group email to SHIELD's third year instructors, alerting them to the situation. He wasn't expecting either Clint or Natasha to actually learn anything from the beginner-level classes, or to be truly graded against the other probationary students attempting to earn their badge – just to have their skill sets audited and the evaluations sent to his personal inbox. He'd only just clicked send on those instructions when Barton's habitual rendition of _Shave and a Haircut_ sounded on the other side of the door. 

"Come in," he called, glancing at the clock on the computer screen, surprised and impressed to find that for once Clint was actually right on time. Looking up to express a deadpan-style congratulations, he instead found himself blinking dumbly at the Black Widow's shapely rear end, slung over a grinning Clint's shoulder. 

"If you want to keep all of your limbs Clint," she hissed, "You will put me down, you will put me down, _now_." 

Barking a laugh, Clint twirled her neatly down onto her feet, ignoring the death glare she sent in his direction in favor of sketching Phil a rough salute. 

"Gaz and her Invader, reporting for duty my tallest!" he announced, and Phil flashed back to one of Clint's longer hospital stays, the cartoon he'd marathoned half-high on morphine, but then Natasha was muttering something in Russian and yes, it probably said something that the only word he recognized this time was 'alien.' 

He was going to have to catch up on that one. 

The language, not... the cartoon. 

Lord, this was just what he needed today when he was already half off his balance – a grinning, sunny, happy-go-lucky Clint to stand around teasing and cracking jokes. It was rare that he got to see his agent like this, so purely, honestly happy. 

He wasn’t going to get anything done. 

"Agent Barton, Agent Romonav," he said, clearing his throat and drawing their attention. "I trust you've both settled in to your new quarters?" 

"Well enough," Clint shrugged, flopping down on the couch that sat against the wall, the one Phil may or may not have requisitioned specifically to lure recalcitrant agents down from the vents above his desk. 

Natasha said nothing, only crossed her arms and looked at him quietly. 

She knew. 

She knew that he knew, and she knew that he knew that she knew. 

What she _thought_ was another thing all together, and Phil suddenly got the distinct feeling that what she thought on the subject mattered. 

He suspected he might wake up with a knife to his throat some night soon – the Black Widow's version of a shovel talk, and that was ridiculous. He wasn't in _love_ with Clint. He _liked_ him, yes, he had to admit that, to himself at the very least, but he couldn't say he loved him... 

And it didn't matter – he was his handler, his boss. Clint relied on him to be the voice in his ear, to be someone he could trust, and that was that. He had never allowed his feelings, whatever they were, to affect that relationship, to come into play, and he didn't plan to start now. 

If the Widow would be harder to fool, well then he would just have to up his game. 

"Very good," he acknowledged, getting to his feet. He contemplated bringing the files with him but rejected the idea, decided that the action was only for his own comfort, a method of self-soothing like wearing his power-tie to budget meetings. Shaking off the strange emotion, the need for armor, he crossed to the open door and gestured the Widow through it. "Shall we?" 

The redhead's mouth turned in something that approximated haughtiness, yet still managed to show blatant interest that made Phil feel like a butterfly pinned to a plaque board. Sliding past him, she waited in the hallway until Clint exited too, linked their elbows together. He was silent as the archer led the way down to medical, listened to them speak calmly in Russian despite the shocked and sometimes frightened looks cast their way by the scattered handful of agents they passed. The two of them did an impressive job of ignoring it but he had no doubt that both of them were taking note, marking out the identity and the reaction of each and every one of them, just as he did. 

Their juniors needed more training - Waters included, the bastard. 

Phil had never liked him, and the way he'd jumped at the chance to humiliate Clint, to take from him, to bash the sniper's face off a wall when he couldn't defend himself didn't speak well for the type of man he was. 

If Phil weren't sure that the Widow was going to deal with the other man, he might be tempted to do so himself. 

As it was, he had things to focus on besides petty revenge, so he followed Clint into the medical bay, a nice change from dragging him there kicking, screaming, or unconscious, and grabbed the archer's favorite nurse to set him up with his yearly physical check-in. Charts were pulled, jokes cracked, and Clint and Natasha settled themselves side-by-side on a hospital bed to wait. For his part Phil was handed a stack of paperwork to sign as Clint's handler and his back-up emergency contact, and as practically the only one on the entire floor that had legible handwriting. 

Once the nurse arrived with one of several lead physicians in tow, Phil asked for a brief intake to be completed on the Widow, as was required for all new agents. He wwasn't naïve enough to think that she would be comfortable with the process, or trusting enough to go so far as to give them her blood or brain scans, but he wanted her stitches checked and previous injuries logged at the very least, her overall health assessed. 

When the talk was over, the explanations and the consent he stood rather awkwardly, uncharacteristically unsure of what to do with himself. Normally he stuck around by request, kept Clint calm and distracted, because if there was anything the archer didn't do well with it was medical, especially if he were being drugged or stuck into the MRI machine. Assuming he would rather stick it out with his old friend this time around, Phil looked toward the curtain that blocked off the exam room, made some sort of aborted shuffle that the Widow must have caught. Arching an elegant eyebrow, she made a delicate scoffing sound in her throat, rolled her eyes. 

"Hold his hand," she commanded, hopping down from the bed and moving away, toward the second exam area next door. "I need no help with this doctor of yours." 

Clint laughed, shook his head at Dr. Danvers, who was still sensitive to threats and had gone a bit pale and wide-eyed. 

"Be nice," he suggested as Natasha allowed herself to be directed to the second bed. "You get suckers if you're good." 

Phil chuckled, reminded of the rather childish reward system that SHIELD had put in place almost exclusively for Clint as a method of operant conditioning and coaxing good behavior from wayward patients. 

Still, it seemed appropriate to leave and professionalism seemed all the more important with the Widow watching on, far too observant for his liking, but then the nurse was asking for Clint's blood and the man was pouting at him with huge, dark, pleading eyes and refused to offer up his inner elbow to the needle until Phil sighed and made to stay, leaning back against the wall with his hands in his pockets and his ankles crossed. Ignoring the little smile that touched the corners of Clint's mouth, he focused instead on the way the man kneaded the stress ball placed in his hand, corded forearm flexing to encourage the flow of blood. 

It didn't help. 

Switching tactics, he started listening in to the goings-on next door, the doctor's questions and the Widow's clipped, cold responses. Health was good, no major problems, stitches looked fine. No fever, no particular tenderness or muscle aches, no infection. A few small scars here and there, but for the most part clear, unblemished skin. She healed nicely, quickly, strangely quickly, but for the most part she didn't do the sort of down and dirty hand-to-hand that got her hurt. 

By the time Clint had bent over the bed and bared his ass to a horse-sized needle full of vaccinations – a sight Phil determinedly ignored – they'd finished writing up the bare bones of a medical file for the Widow and come back into the room, Danver's scribbling away on a clipboard and Natasha watching smugly as Clint buckled up his cargoes. 

"She's up-to-date on all the vaccines we require," the man announced, still staring down at his paperwork as his pen flew across the page, explaining her smirk when Clint stuck his tongue out in her direction. "And several more besides. Other than the stitches she looks good, and those should be ready to come out in three or four days - the wound's already begun to heal nicely. No outstanding injuries or chronic illnesses, no allergies, no significant identifying marks...?" 

Here he paused in question, finally looked up at the Widow who made an unimpressed face before lifting her hand, turning it towards him. Phil, who was positioned behind the doctor, had a neat, clear view over the man's shoulder, was able to make out, even at a distance, the thin, stylized arrow inked in white onto the inside of her left middle finger, and to watch as Clint leaned over and gave her a loud, dramatic, smacking kiss on the cheek. 

Jesus. 

They had matching tattoos and no one at SHIELD had ever even considered... 

Maybe it wasn't only the baby agents who needed work. 

Putting away his odd, shaken emotions, Phil waited until the last of the updates were finished, paperwork complete, appointments made, waited until Danvers had wandered off again before turning back to the two agents. 

"Breakfast?" he asked, "Or tour?" 

"Breakfast, duh," Clint deadpanned, and Phil and the Widow found themselves scoffing a chuckle in perfect harmony. 

"Why did I even ask?" Phil muttered, rolling his eyes. 

The next two hours passed in a blur as Clint dragged them all over headquarters; first stop being the mess hall where he explained the delicate process of all-you-can-eat SHIELD chow served high-school cafeteria style, and demonstrated his ability to charm just about anything out of their ex-agent lunch ladies. Phil was more than happy to sip at his coffee and listen to the archer detail some of the inner workings of SHIELD, to correct a few assumptions made where Clint's knowledge ran short of the position of specialist. It was good too to see them get a hot meal, to stuff themselves with crispy waffles, scrambled eggs, sausage and fruit and the green, protein packed smoothies he'd never personally been able to stomach. 

When they'd finished – and the Widow could put away a surprising amount for someone her size – Clint led her through the floors like a child showing off their new kindergarten class, pointing out the lounges and community kitchens, the state-of-the-art gym and the pool. At the range he explained the process of qualifying with each of SHIELD's standard issue weapons, and then any in particular that they didn't stock. This earned a narrow-eyed look of interest, of sly knowing between his two new assets, and he had no doubt that the Widow would indeed be bringing in the tools of her own trade. 

For now she would have to content herself with what SHIELD could provide – a two week stipend that would buy her clothes and commissary, a few furnishings for her bunk. After passing through laundry where she was fitted for sweats, civvies, and a tac suit, Phil dragged them up to administration, where he shoved them both in front of a camera for temporary badges. The Widow stood for hers with an arch sort of smile, barely there, but it somehow showed the truth of her – beauty, deadly grace, nothing given away. Clint's turn came and it was the same angry, taciturn face that Phil had seen staring up at him that first night in the rain, when the younger man had been bleeding out from a bullet to the leg and Phil hadn't been sure anymore if bringing him in was an option. He still saw that face sometimes, when Clint was pissed or caught in self-loathing, old memories, even if the archer laughed it off and claimed that his 'resting murder face' kept the junior agents in line. 

Standing along the wall with the Widow beside him, Phil watched as Clint crossed his arms, sighed, waited for the flash. 

"Make him laugh." 

The Widow cocked an eyebrow, looked at him in question. 

"Make him laugh," he repeated, jerking his chin toward the blonde. "He hates his photo." 

For a moment she seemed to consider it, seemed to look at him too closely for comfort, then she turned to Clint and asked him if he remembered Borneo, and for a second he stared at her like he had no idea what she was talking about, but then his face cracked in a wide, happy grin and the camera flashed and he was laughing like Phil had never heard him before, so clean and honest that he wasn't even all that distracted by the slow pile-up of cities the two had in common. 

"Very nice Agent," he allowed, pulling the plastic temp badge from the lamination machine and giving it a good look before handing it over. The camera had caught him just as his mouth had started to curve, eyes bright and face softer than anyone would expect from the man, not hard and gruff and irritated or the forced cheer of the class clown who liked to pull pranks and pull rank on his colleagues, his superiors. 

Accepting the badge, Clint didn't seem particularly impressed, laughing off the little probationary symbol on the corner, but Phil caught him running his thumb over the thing, and as he turned them both toward the elevators, toward the meeting with Fury that would determine all their fates, he thought that maybe Clint knew the truth better than all of them. 

That maybe they would be all right.


End file.
